Royal aides said the decision was intended to respect the wishes of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles who want a low-key ceremony.

But Britain's royal-obsessed tabloid newspapers were united in declaring it a "massive snub" delivered by a queen convinced her presence at the event would demean the monarchy.

"This should be the happiest day of Charles and Camilla's lives," the Daily Mirror said in an editorial.

"Instead it is turning into a nightmare."

The queen's move provided the latest twist to an increasingly chaotic build-up to the wedding between heir-to-the-throne Charles, 56, and divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles, 57.

"It has gone from a smooth operation to a fuss and now a farce," constitutional expert David Starkey told Reuters.

"Mothers always go to your wedding whoever or wherever you are," royal photographer Arthur Edwards told Sky News.

Buckingham Palace rejected suggestions of a row, stressing the queen would attend a church blessing of the couple by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to be held after the ceremony at Windsor's Guildhall.

"The queen will not be attending the civil ceremony because she is aware that the prince and Mrs Parker Bowles wanted to keep the occasion low-key," the palace said in a statement.

"It is a snub and it isn't a snub," he told Reuters.

"I'm sure the queen does not feel it is appropriate, nor does anyone else, for her to pad across the road from Windsor Castle to the registry office opposite."

- Nampa-Reuters

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